The Real Antonette Come Forth Vol. 5 and 6

By Antonette Smith

The Real Antonette Come Forth series walks you through the life of Antonette Smith. This book series chronicles the life of a girl from age five to thirty-nine. She has suffered physical, mental, emotional, and drug abuse. She has cheated death and lived to tell her story. If you have been molested, if you have been raped, if you have been in an abusive relationship, if you have run for your life, if you have been rejected, if you have been abandoned, if you have been looked over, if you are a teen parent, if you are a confused teen, if you suffer from false identity, if you suffer from hurt and pain, and if you suffer from heartache and pain, it does not matter if you are a boy or a girl, man or woman - hurt is hurt, and shame is shame. This series has been written to shame the devil and glorify God. It tells all the hidden dark secrets to dethrone the devil of Antonette's past and make Jesus Lord of all her past, present, and future. She's free to be the real her, who God created her to be, and you are too. Jesus freed her from a life of lies, abuse, sex, and drugs, and he has the power to free you too. "This book is about truth. When im reading, it takes me to where you are. I can just see it. People want truth, real stuff. Keep writing truth." -Verdice McClendon, Brookhaven Mississippi. "I don't know if you realize this of not. But your book reach people on many levels. From all walks of life. You have something for everyone." -Lacie Carpenter, McComb, Mississippi.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641381574

Book preview

Leap of Faith, Age 27, March 2003

I’m on the Greyhound bus with my three youngest children—son, age eleven; daughter, age five; son, age four. We headed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, first to throw off the police, number one, and my family, number two. I’m currently still on felony probation for retail theft in Cook County and Kankakee County, Illinois. But I did pay off all my traffic fines before I left so I would be able to get license once I pay the reinstatement fee.

When the bus drove off into the highway, a big relief came over me, because I knew I would never live in Illinois again. And that made me very happy. I have left and returned many times before, but I won’t stay, I didn’t like it, I desired different. And now I’m a fugitive on the run for my life I really can’t return. It’s just a matter of hours before my probation officer is at my door and my mother’s. I was supposed to turn myself into rehab this morning, but I wasn’t going to rehab and leave my son behind, nor was I gonna allow the school system to isolate him from his peers again. So I chose to free both of us from the judicial system. I left the state. I’ll take my chances in Mississippi with the Lord on my side, front, and back.

We arrived in Minneapolis and we will be staying at my aunt’s house, like I did years ago, but only I was not staying long. So they have heard I smoked crack but didn’t believe it due to how I used to be with them. I sold and gave them crack cocaine because I hated to see them ask anybody for anything and I got that behavior from my father. Help people out, I didn’t care what they were on, drugs, sick, blind, or crazy. If you could help them, help them. I still remembered that. So I was very much still full of crack cocaine, I just finished a quarter ounce of cocaine last night before I left because I knew it was the last time I would smoke crack, so I thought.

The third day, my cousin asked me to watch her three children while she went to work. I agreed and she said, I’ll pay you twenty dollars.

I told her parents, Why won’t y’all help the girl with her children and you see she’s trying to work?

My aunt and uncle said they were not watching sh**.

I said, What?

So my uncle said, Did she tell you where she worked?

I said, Yes, on Lake Street.

He said, What kind of work does she do?

I said, I don’t know.

He said, I’m gonna show you. He told my aunt to watch the children for a minute.

I said, Yeah, because she told me she gets off at three. It’s five o’clock now.

My uncle and I went to Lake Street. He parked and said, Look across the street on the corner.

I looked and said, What?

He said, Look again on the corner.

I looked and saw my cousin. I said, There she goes.

He said, Wait a minute, don’t get out, just watch.

I sat and watched. I said, Why is she dressed like that, first of all?

Y’all, I promise you. I helped raise this girl and my heart dropped into my shoe with what I saw next. She was dressed in fishnet stockings, high-heeled boots, and looked like a T-shirt with holes on the side, which was supposed to be a dress.

I said to my uncle, What the hell is she dressed like that for?

He said, She’s working.

Working?

He said, She is a prostitute.

I said, Hell to the no. I got out the car and called her. She got into another car and left. Where do they live?

He said, This is why we don’t watch her children. He said the children’s father was her pimp.

I said, Shut the hell up. What?

Yup, she already had one daughter when he met her, now she supposedly have two boys by him.

I said, Take me to get these children. I went back to my uncle’s house, got the children and their stuff. My aunt said, Tookie, be careful, that family call themselves bad.

I said, They can call themselves whatever in the hell they want, they gonna take these children and give my damn money. We arrived at the grandmother’s house. The father, the pimp, was outside. I got the baby and told the other two children to come on out the car. I said to him, You n****? He said yes, I said, T***** asked me to watch her children until she got off work at three o’clock and I just seen her get into a car on Lake Street. Now it’s y’all business what you do, but I want my money now for watching these children.

He said, Well, I’ll take the two boys ’cause they mine.

I said, No, the hell you won’t, all three got dropped off together, all three gonna stay together, and if you got the momma, you got the children too, whether they yours or not.

He said, Where are you from?

I said, I’m from Illinois, give me my money.

He said, People usually don’t talk to me like this, but I’m gonna let you make it.

Let me make it? Man, pay me my money and you ain’t got to see me ever again in life. So he paid me with interest.

I got into my uncle’s car. He said, I bet you won’t babysit tomorrow, will you? Laughing.

I was like, I can’t believe this.

He said, We had to go to Tennessee to get her out of jail, because she was only sixteen, he took her down there.

I said, What?

He said, So we just let her go and don’t worry with her.

I said, Am I missing something here? Because something is seriously wrong where you turn your child over to a pimp. I need a drink and rock or something behind all this sh****. Craziness is all I can say.

So we got back to my aunt’s house and it’s more clear to me that Minnesota was not the place for me to be. So I began checking into options for travel, escape. The next day I went to the welfare office. One thing I knew for certain was every state will buy you a one-way ticket home if you agreed not to come back to their state. I went and saw the worker. I told her I was homeless with my three children and I just wanted four one-way tickets to Mississippi. Of course she tried to tell me about the shelters and all the help they had available for single mothers. I said, Lady, I lived here before and I’m aware of all of that help, I don’t want to be here in your state. Now either you can help me leave, or I can go break the law and I get arrested and you will have to find a foster home for three children and I will tell the judge I came to you for help to go home.

So she said, Let me call my supervisor.

I said, Call.

He came down and hit the computer. He said, We can get you one-way tickets back to Kankakee, Illinois, that’s where your last address and ID say.

I said, Sir, my house burned down in Illinois, my children and I was homeless there, why you think I ended up back in Minnesota? I don’t have family there to help me. My family is in Mississippi, I’ll let you talk to my aunt. She said my children and I can live with her and she will watch my children while I work.

He got on the phone, called the Greyhound bus station, and got us tickets. He also gave us seventy-five dollars for food, because it was a twenty-six-hour ride. I didn’t care. I just wanted to get to Mississippi. So he said, Go to the bus station, show them your ID. And they gave a description of my children’s and my clothes to the attendant I was supposed to see. He said, Antonette, do not return to my city for the rest of your life.

I said, Thank you, I won’t, and left.

My uncle dropped us off at the bus station. He said, You gonna sit down here six hours waiting on the bus?

I said. Yes, I can’t miss it. See, he didn’t know I was on the run. And my warrants had not yet entered into the system, because they run your name before they help you. God was with me, with us, he knew I won’t survive prison. I have survived many things, but extended stay in jail and prison, who can bear?

We were in the Greyhound and headed to Chicago. Lord, please let me make it out of Illinois before the police find me. So I was nervous. We had a three-hour layover in Chicago. I went out to smoke. I told my son to watch the two small children. Sit here so I can see you through the glass. Well walking out, I found a locket key chain. Well, well, to my surprise, it twisted open and was full of weed, dro at that. Yes, Lord, a good joint was all I needed to calm me down. But I was scared to smoke up here, I’ll wait till I get out of Illinois. And that’s what I did. When we arrived in Memphis, I bought me a cigar and went into the bathroom to roll me a blunt. No, I was not gonna smoke the whole blunt, just a half to calm my nerves. God knows I’m stopping everything cold turkey, I’m having withdrawals from everything—heroin, cocaine, weed, and alcohol. Yes, I was a junkie, I’ll say it for you. But God knew I needed something or my body would be into shock from withdrawals. Even in my sin, God was merciful and gracious. Oh, I could hear some of you deep religious folks saying, God ain’t had nothing to do with you finding that weed, marijuana. If anything, the devil did. Well, I just believe God can control the evil of a day as well. After all, he commanded the earth to bring forth herbs of all kinds and each had a seed within itself to reproduce. I rest my case and smoke my blunt and thank God in the process to my true deliverance. After all, he is all I have to depend on and trust in.

Chapter 2

The Process Begins

We arrived in Wesson, Mississippi, and my cousin was there to pick us up from the bus station. Lord, that was a long ride, thank God I’m home. I felt a sense of peace, I could relax. We made it to my aunt’s house, the one that helped to raise me. She was smiling from ear to ear. And me as well. She said, Welcome home.

I said, Yes, ma’am, oh, I’m glad to be back and I’m not leaving no more. I really meant that and God was gonna hold me to those words. I didn’t know it at the time I spoke them, but I really needed to stay and change. Now just because you have a desire to change for the better and it’s God’s will for your life, everything will not come easy, so work according to how you plan it.

The children and I took a bath and my aunt had cooked us dinner. We ate and talked. I called my mother to let her know we had arrived safely. My aunt was like, Now I don’t know these two little ones, meaning my baby girl and baby boy. When I lived here before, I had three children, now I had five. Lord, have mercy, I’m such a different person from who I was seven years ago. My aunt and cousin didn’t have a clue on all the events that took place in my life these last few years and even now. My aunt and I talked while the children played. She said, I don’t know what you was doing in Illinois, and I don’t care, but I know your daddy worried the hell out of me about you. To get you home. I mean he worried me.

I said, Yeah, with tears in my eyes because I knew it was true. I loved my daddy and he loved me. I was his baby. He knew I was doing through since he had been gone, even his stay in prison, I was going through, but his death. Just took me to another realm in my mind. Words can’t express the mental anguish and turmoil I felt.

So my aunt said, Well, you home now for good.

I said, Yes, indeed.

I went outside to smoke a cigarette, and I was thinking and praying, Lord, you know my situation. I’m a fugitive on the run from two counties on probation and court ordered to go to impatient rehab which I didn’t show up for, so I have a warrant out for my arrest for that too. I know I made the best decision for me and my children and I know you agree with me because you provided the means for my children and I to get here. Thank you for answering my prayers to get us to safety and so saving my life. Forgive me for all my wrongs, and help me to do better. I know I can’t ever go back to Illinois, so grant me stability and contentment to stay. Help me get through the withdrawals from all the drug use. And the Lord began to give me instructions: Begin to fast like you used too. Three days a week, no drinking. I can smoke cigarettes and weed for appointed time. Go to church and Bible study. Read my Bible daily to get strong in the Lord. Walk daily. Get me some gospel music. In other words, I had to start my walk with God over. Increase my prayer life. Obey my every word and you will stay free. I said, Yes, Lord. So I immediately began to read my Bible again and chose the days I would fast and the times I would walk. This wasn’t anything new to me, because this used to be my lifestyle, but the trouble was it’s been six or more years since I practiced this. So the fight was strong. It’s gonna take time because I have to detox from a lot of sin, lust, addictions. My mind was so far to the left, but inside I knew I would get there. I also knew that in a matter of days, once the drugs wore off and got out of my system, I would be flooded with emotions. See the drugs suppressed my emotions and allowed me to escape my reality for a short period of time so I couldn’t feel them. That’s why drugs are called a mood-altering substance, it alters your mood so you can change how you feel. I had detoxed from drugs enough times to know the effects of them. But what I didn’t know was how long it would last this time. If I was in Illinois, I could get a bag of crack or heroin once in a while to help me along the way. But here in Mississippi, I couldn’t get nothing. As far as I knew, the weed was no good. So I was having anxiety about this because I was not trying to go crazy here. I didn’t know if my health will fail from the years of drug abuse. I felt so ashamed and guilty from stealing and lying, putting my children through hell. Now I had taken them away from their family again, and I couldn’t promise them that I would ever take them back home.

Lord, they don’t have a clue of what I’m doing. I gotta trust you for real now, if you don’t help me, I won’t be helped. I gotta smoke a blunt now.

As soon as I had that thought, a truck pulled into the driveway. It was my homeboy from Mississippi. He said, Girl, your aunt told me you was coming back down here. I missed you. I gave him a hug. He was an older guy who used to cut my aunt’s grass the last time I lived down here. And I also used to smoke weed with him. He said, Girl, you still smoke?

I said, Hell to the yes.

He said, I got some.

I said, Come meet my two other children and then I’ll tell my aunt we going to the store. So he met my two youngest children and he remembered my oldest son. I said, Aunt, I’ll be back, I’m riding to the store to get cigarettes, you need anything back?

Bring me a Sprite drink.

I said, Okay. Children, I’ll bring y’all something back.

We went to the store, and lo and behold, the Newport was $2.50. I said, Is the price wrong?

The man said, No, ma’am, it’s correct.

I said, Newports are $5 in Illinois.

He said, Yeah.

I said, Give me two packs for that price. I got the children snacks and my aunt a drink. Homeboy had given me $20. I told him, You haven’t changed at all. You still just give me money.

He said, Girl, I’m too old to change. He was in his sixties. We got the cigars and went to his house. He said, Girl, when you get settled in, I’m gonna pay you to clean up my house and wash for me like you used to. I laughed and said no problem. He said, That will help you until you get a job.

I said, Sure will. So we talked and smoked. And I said, Let me get back home. That’s some good weed, I’m hungry now. I went home and he left, said he would be over tomorrow after he got off work. I said, Cool.

My aunt said, You had a phone call.

I said, Who was it?

She said, Your secret admirer down here that used to come sit and watch you.

I said, D*****.

She laughed and said, Yup.

I laughed and said, What, he married now, right?

She said, Yes, with two children, that boy loved you and wanted to marry you. He waited and waited for you to come back.

I said, Yeah.

My aunt said, You would have had a good life with him.

I said, Yeah, but he was a virgin, I couldn’t mess up that man’s life and mind. He wasn’t experienced enough for me. And that was true. He was twenty-seven and a virgin, great, he worked and was taking over his father’s logging company. He would have provided for me financially and been faithful. He loved my children and didn’t care that I had children. But for me I had experienced way too many sinful deeds to bring this man into my life. I wasn’t gonna subject him to the likes of